{"id":393387,"date":"2010-03-05T13:48:26","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T18:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=78526"},"modified":"2010-03-05T13:48:26","modified_gmt":"2010-03-05T18:48:26","slug":"counterterrorism-and-the-rule-of-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/393387","title":{"rendered":"Counterterrorism and the Rule of Law*"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Man, Dan Benjamin, the State Department&#8217;s counterterrorism chief,  sure picked an <a id=\"kru6\" title=\"unlucky day\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/78470\/will-obama-really-give-up-on-ksm-trial-without-a-fight\">unlucky day<\/a> to <a id=\"bofh\" title=\"deliver a speech\" href=\"http:\/\/www.state.gov\/s\/ct\/rls\/rm\/2010\/137865.htm\">deliver a speech<\/a> defending the Obama  administration&#8217;s counterterrorism record to the International Peace  Institute in New York:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Finally, our approach recognizes  that our counterterrorism efforts can best succeed when they make  central respect for human rights and the rule of law. Because as  President Obama has said from the outset, there should be no tradeoff  between our security and our values. Indeed, in light of what we know  about radicalization, it is clear that navigating by our values is an  essential part of a successful counterterrorism effort. We have moved to  rectify past excesses of the past few years by working to close the  prison at Guantanamo Bay&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span id=\"more-78526\"><\/span>To be serious, this is what  retired Lt. Gen. Harry Soyster meant when he said that American  adversaries can &#8220;feel they are making progress if in fact our initial  stand is reversed&#8221; on the KSM trial. Because abrogating the rule of law  to accomodate political fear-mongering creates an asterisk after  speeches like this that stick up for a mutually reinforcing  commitment to the rule of law and national security. Hypocrisy has real  security consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Man, Dan Benjamin, the State Department&#8217;s counterterrorism chief, sure picked an unlucky day to deliver a speech defending the Obama administration&#8217;s counterterrorism record to the International Peace Institute in New York: Finally, our approach recognizes that our counterterrorism efforts can best succeed when they make central respect for human rights and the rule of law. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-393387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4314"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}